It is sometimes hard, I think, to hold both the good and bad in the world in your mind at the same time, and so we pick times to focus on each. Thanksgiving, obviously, is one of the positive ones. There is much in my life that I am thankful for — friends near and far; family (unfortunately, largely far); a growing relationship with much promise; a home, neighborhood and city I enjoy; lots of fun projects to keep me engaged and busy; a job that that similarly engages; and plenty of potential for more to come on all fronts.

Happy Thanksgiving, Internets!

posted November 25, 2010 – 1:53 pm

Rather than focusing on the depressing political news of late, let’s talk about more positive stuff. Like, say, Halloween.

For the second year in a row, General Assembly threw a killer party down in Georgetown. Last year, a group of us went as variations on Abraham Lincoln:

And having been last year, I knew the space had really high ceilings, so this year I went big. Like, 15-foot-tall-giant-squid big:

Originally, I’d hoped to use just helium balloons to hold the top part of the costume (the body of the squid) aloft, but it turned out even 1.1 oz ripstop nylon was too heavy (or more accurately, I couldn’t get enough helium in there to provide enough lift), and so I had to add some support in the form of a thin bamboo pole running up my back. It was definitely the easiest costume to spot at the party (what, being 8 feet taller than almost everything else there), but wasn’t so much the best in terms of being social (my beak cut off peripheral vision and it was hard to hear) or practical.

Lots more pictures (of everyone at the party, this year and last) here.